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"Tracking down a bug that is creating irregular SERPs in rankings"

"We are currently tracking down a bug that is creating irregular SERPs in rankings reports. We will update you when we know more. - 11/19 10pm PST."

This is written under "Help" section for Rankings. I check the rankings regularly, every week of so and this morning I realized that half of my first page keywords dropped by 7 positions without changing anything; they were all very high traffic keywords, all in first page in Google. I did alter the Title (removed the name of the company from the end) and I saw an increase in rankings by a few positions for the most targeted keywords. What would be a good alternative for checking the accuracy of the rankings? On my end, from my laptop, everything looks good but with we all know about personalized results and so I don't trust them too much. The traffic in our industry has gone down as well this time of the year for a few weeks as well, I can't take that into consideration either and the back-links profile looks good too, PA and DA still the same. Google webmaster shows no issues.

5 Responses

It's possible that it's a legitimate change that really doesn't last a whole day. Or something limited to where/how SEOmoz is search, and being fed different results dynamically, which only happens more and more as Google gets more sophisticated (ie. geographic-based search results).

As much of a jerk as I feel like for saying this here, I do also want to be helpful- that is, I've never personally found SEOmoz's rank tracker to be entirely usable for most purposes. It also only checks once a week, it sometimes misses those runs, it's expensive on a per-keyword basis (comparatively), and the PDF reports that it generates for a client are not competitive with other software.

Realize though, if you're like me, you end up paying about 25 people for SEO tools, so if you just need something simple, SEOmoz might work for you. Here are three others you might consider:

- SEO PowerSuite's rank tracker is what I personally used most, since it can be totally controlled from a desktop app (tweaked/reran at will), you can poll daily if you want (or on a scheduler), and you have enormous flexibility in terms of what your reports look like with historical data, what search engines/languages, and so forth.

- AuthorityLabs is another cool pretty option that's web-based, daily, and allows you to compare competition kind of smoothly.

- Advanced Web Ranking is another nice tool that I know Ian Laurie endorses. It's prettiest of the 3, reminds me a bit of AuthorityLabs, is desktop-based, but seemed to lack a lot of the features that I love in PowerSuite.

SEOmoz's toolset really seems to excel in my eyes with their Open Site Explorer data, MozCast, other various minor tools (especially some in labs, like the competitor backlink finder). The on-site crawl tools are nice at times too, and often highlight important things that others don't (although again, the opposite is often true too). So, I suppose the point here is, don't expect to ever "win" when it comes to SEO software; with the current state of the industry, your best bet is going to be just looking for the right mix. :)

I love Corey's explanation and echo his sentiments. There are definitely strong opportunities in the SEO tools market. I am very much looking forward to improvements with the SEOmoz toolset in 2013, especially as it pertains to keyword tracking. Until then, I will also be a subscriber to numerous SEO tools in an effort to gain access to the best data for my clients.

Providing a quality SEO tool is very challenging. Developers want stability. There is a huge investment in time and money in creating a SEO tool. The most valuable SEO tools have numerous interdependent components. Search engine algorithm and technology changes happen quickly. Accordingly, most SEO tools fall short of being idea. What currently works is an experienced SEO who uses various tools for very specific needs.

I would love to eventually find a tool set I feel comfortable in endorsing. I am still searching.

Thanks for your feedback Corey. I didn't need other tools for checking rankings until now but I am ready to try new tools. Any other tools that you might want to share?

Quick update: I downloaded all 3 programs that you suggested and I got 3 very different results. Main keyword appears on 2nd, 8th and 11th position across those 3 programs. Is this normal, do you get this too?

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